Part 128

When she reached home she was met at the door by Stagg, and one or two other of Jude’s fellow stoneworkers. “We are just going down to the river,” said the former, “to see the boat-bumping. But we’ve called round on our way to ask how your husband is.”

“He’s sleeping nicely, thank you,” said Arabella.

“That’s right. Well now, can’t you give yourself half an hour’s relaxation, Mrs. Fawley, and come along with us? ’Twould do you good.”

“I should like to go,” said she. “I’ve never seen the boat-racing, and I hear it is good fun.”

“Come along!”

“How I wish I could!” She looked longingly down the street. “Wait a minute, then. I’ll just run up and see how he is now. Father is with him, I believe; so I can most likely come.”

They waited, and she entered. Downstairs the inmates were absent as before, having, in fact, gone in a body to the river where the procession of boats was to pass. When she reached the bedroom she found that her father had not even now come.

“Why couldn’t he have been here!” she said impatiently. “He wants to see the boats himself—that’s what it is!”

However, on looking round to the bed she brightened, for she saw that Jude was apparently sleeping, though he was not in the usual half-elevated posture necessitated by his cough. He had slipped down, and lay flat. A second glance caused her to start, and she went to the bed. His face was quite white, and gradually becoming rigid. She touched his fingers; they were cold, though his body was still warm. She listened at his chest. All was still within. The bumping of near thirty years had ceased.

After her first appalled sense of what had happened, the faint notes of a military or other brass band from the river reached her ears; and in a provoked tone she exclaimed, “To think he should die just now! Why did he die just now!” Then meditating another moment or two she went to the door, softly closed it as before, and again descended the stairs.

“Here she is!” said one of the workmen. “We wondered if you were coming after all. Come along; we must be quick to get a good place… Well, how is he? Sleeping well still? Of course, we don’t want to drag ’ee away if—”

“Oh yes—sleeping quite sound. He won’t wake yet,” she said hurriedly.

They went with the crowd down Cardinal Street, where they presently reached the bridge, and the gay barges burst upon their view. Thence they passed by a narrow slit down to the riverside path—now dusty, hot, and thronged. Almost as soon as they had arrived the grand procession of boats began; the oars smacking with a loud kiss on the face of the stream, as they were lowered from the perpendicular.

“Oh, I say—how jolly! I’m glad I’ve come,” said Arabella. “And—it can’t hurt my husband—my being away.”

On the opposite side of the river, on the crowded barges, were gorgeous nosegays of feminine beauty, fashionably arrayed in green, pink, blue, and white. The blue flag of the boat club denoted the centre of interest, beneath which a band in red uniform gave out the notes she had already heard in the death-chamber. Collegians of all sorts, in canoes with ladies, watching keenly for “our” boat, darted up and down. While she regarded the lively scene somebody touched Arabella in the ribs, and looking round she saw Vilbert.

“That philtre is operating, you know!” he said with a leer. “Shame on ’ee to wreck a heart so!”

“I shan’t talk of love to-day.”

“Why not? It is a general holiday.”

She did not reply. Vilbert’s arm stole round her waist, which act could be performed unobserved in the crowd. An arch expression overspread Arabella’s face at the feel of the arm, but she kept her eyes on the river as if she did not know of the embrace.

The crowd surged, pushing Arabella and her friends sometimes nearly into the river, and she would have laughed heartily at the horse-play that succeeded, if the imprint on her mind’s eye of a pale, statuesque countenance she had lately gazed upon had not sobered her a little.

The fun on the water reached the acme of excitement; there were immersions, there were shouts: the race was lost and won, the pink and blue and yellow ladies retired from the barges, and the people who had watched began to move.

“Well—it’s been awfully good,” cried Arabella. “But I think I must get back to my poor man. Father is there, so far as I know; but I had better get back.”

“What’s your hurry?”

“Well, I must go… Dear, dear, this is awkward!”

At the narrow gangway where the people ascended from the riverside path to the bridge the crowd was literally jammed into one hot mass—Arabella and Vilbert with the rest; and here they remained motionless, Arabella exclaiming, “Dear, dear!” more and more impatiently; for it had just occurred to her mind that if Jude were discovered to have died alone an inquest might be deemed necessary.

“What a fidget you are, my love,” said the physician, who, being pressed close against her by the throng, had no need of personal effort for contact. “Just as well have patience: there’s no getting away yet!”

It was nearly ten minutes before the wedged multitude moved sufficiently to let them pass through. As soon as she got up into the street Arabella hastened on, forbidding the physician to accompany her further that day. She did not go straight to her house; but to the abode of a woman who performed the last necessary offices for the poorer dead; where she knocked.

“My husband has just gone, poor soul,” she said. “Can you come and lay him out?”